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Rockbox General => Rockbox General Discussion => Topic started by: robin0800 on July 15, 2008, 12:11:40 PM

Title: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: robin0800 on July 15, 2008, 12:11:40 PM
Sansa C200 should not be released until The OF is not needed for things like charging and transfering files. In fact Any target like this should in my opinion not be released. Rockbox should perform all basic functions before a version 3.0 release for these targets.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: saratoga on July 15, 2008, 04:34:50 PM
Sansa C200 should not be released until The OF is not needed for things like charging and transfering files.

This was discussed on IRC and most people seemed to think it wasn't a big deal, since using the OF for file transfer works smoothly enough on the Sansas.  Though I think there was some thought that automatic rebooting back into the OF should be fixed if at all possible.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: robin0800 on July 15, 2008, 06:53:30 PM
Well I think both charging and file transfers should be in rockbox.
It is perhaps true the are both not far away.
So really I would rather wait until these are done before release three, at least this would keep the pressure on. It might also help in support as you could tout release three as a replacement and any thing less still needing the OF.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: Llorean on July 15, 2008, 08:11:43 PM
It's "3.0" not "Release three" as there have been more than two previous releases.

Please, it's really not that hard to just accept that it's a specific version number and use it.

The USB problems in all likelihood will not be resolved by the 3.0 release date. Delaying the release will not happen, as we all know what happens if we fall into that trap. Either the release coordinator will decide using the OF USB mode is acceptable, or he won't. That's about all there is to it. If it's decided to be unacceptable, 3.0 won't include those targets that must use it. But this seems very unlikely to happen, so you'll frankly just have to accept that.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: Zardoz on July 15, 2008, 08:41:22 PM
Just a question - maybe two..... three...also maybe a little off-topic. Why is there any importance placed on a release 3.0? Is it a means of applying a little pressure, cleaning out unnecessary code, making the whole thing tidier and so on? If this is an open source project, and not a commercial release, what does it matter if there are bugs and whatnot?
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: Llorean on July 15, 2008, 08:43:03 PM
The whole point of "release" versions is that we can say "here is a copy of the code, in a known state, that should work reasonably well if you don't wish to simply download current development builds."

It also takes pressure *off* the developers in terms of the current development builds, because if something breaks there's always the release version for users to make use of until it's fixed.

Currently people don't seem to be in the clear that when using "current builds" they're testers, more than users, as it's an actively developed piece of code, and they're getting the most recent, and not always stable, developments.

Bugs in 3.0 are okay if they're documented, and if they do not prevent normal use of the player. Depending on the OF's USB can be documented, and it certainly doesn't prevent use of the player.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: Zardoz on July 15, 2008, 09:11:02 PM
Thanks for the explanation.  :)

(Something I often wondered - is there a 'repository' of all rockbox builds/revisions somewhere?)

I've always understood that I'm using untested (and free) software and think there should be NOO pressure on developers to do jot if they don't wanna! But would it be feasible to fix revisions/builds known to be 'least buggy' on the repository rather than strive for a 'release'?
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: Llorean on July 15, 2008, 09:30:46 PM
Builds are only kept around for one month, but an entire revision history of the entire project is kept so it's possible at any time to re-create any historical build.

More or less, though, the idea of "taking a reasonably working build and patching it up" is the idea we're going to be following for this release. Specifically playback seems to have settled down to a reasonable state, so we're hoping the "reasonably working build" will be "Rockbox as it is when the time comes for the feature freeze" but if it's gotten bad again by that point, we'll consider builds from a slightly earlier time period.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: Zardoz on July 15, 2008, 10:17:52 PM
I guess that's exactly what you described a release as, and that takes some work and collating of benches, feedback, realtime data, code etc (ok now I understand it's a big undertaking. I just don't know why you guys and girls don't do less - this is FREE!! But I understand the feeling of doing a good job and so on.) Playback has been completely flawless for me since I started using the [more-evil-than-microsoft] ipod 80GB with rockbox. Only issues I had (and I risk deletion here) were with playlists, making and saving large playlists, displaying them etc

I love rockbox and couldn't care for release.
keep the faith.
Z
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: Llorean on July 15, 2008, 10:30:05 PM
There were some issues with playback occasionally seemingly randomly going out of order, and that was one of the two big showstoppers we decided needed to be addressed before 3.0. It got addressed, and so did the other one (which was a similar significant playback issue) and that's why we're going ahead with it now.

There's still quite a few bugs here and there (possibly even a lot) but we feel that we can write up a "Known Issues" and release with them, so that there's a 3.0 version for people to fall back on, rather than never having a stable-ish version.

In fact the current plan is to designate a release every 3 months, if at all possible.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: saanaito on July 16, 2008, 08:55:37 AM
About the only bug that bothers me is the delay there is on decoding .MP3s if I quickly switch tracks, i.e., before they're buffered well. I wound up adjusting my habits to conform, but I'd still love to see it improved. :)
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: NicolasP on July 16, 2008, 11:06:03 AM
About the only bug that bothers me is the delay there is on decoding .MP3s if I quickly switch tracks, i.e., before they're buffered well. I wound up adjusting my habits to conform, but I'd still love to see it improved. :)
What do you mean by "decoding"? Do you mean the displaying of the track information has a delay, or is the delay before audio actually starts playing?
In both cases, enabling dircache helps to an extent. Keep in mind that not everything can be buffered and that a hard drive has to be spun up.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: robin0800 on July 16, 2008, 11:08:56 AM
Quote
and that a hard drive has to be spun up

A C250 is flash based and probably not part of his problem
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: saanaito on July 16, 2008, 08:56:32 PM
Do you mean the displaying of the track information has a delay, or is the delay before audio actually starts playing?

The latter. I've been using r17979 for about a week now, but I haven't seen any notes about changes in the playback code (http://www.rockbox.org/since-4weeks.html) (and yes, I know that other code can affect playback performance) (and yes, I will update). :)

Quote
In both cases, enabling dircache helps to an extent. Keep in mind that not everything can be buffered and that a hard drive has to be spun up.

On a whim, I turned that on yesterday. Although

A C250 is flash based

I still noticed an improvement. My guess is that part of the problem might have to do with my enormous MUSIC folder on the internal memory: the MUSIC folder has no subdirectories, just 500+ files (I looked at the list limits, just to be sure).

Sansa C200 should not be released until The OF is not needed for things like charging and transfering files.

I'd settle for a good USB driver. The OF now takes ten minutes to refresh its database when my memory card is inserted (I can remove it for charging) (I have dozens of cihptunes and MIDIs; that's mostly why it takes so long, and why it refreshes on EVERY OF boot and after every USB "session").
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: tmcarson1 on July 16, 2008, 09:59:26 PM
Sansa C200 should not be released until The OF is not needed for things like charging and transfering files. In fact Any target like this should in my opinion not be released. Rockbox should perform all basic functions before a version 3.0 release for these targets.

I didn't even realize there was  a version 3.0 already, glad to hear =)

How do I determine if I have the latest stable release?  The version screen on my player says:
r18064-080715

Thanks for your reply.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: JdGordon on July 16, 2008, 10:46:40 PM
there is no version 3.0 yet.. its in planning
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: wintermute23 on July 17, 2008, 09:28:18 AM
How do I determine if I have the latest stable release?  The version screen on my player says:
r18064-080715

Thanks for your reply.
There's really no such thing as the "latest stable build". All the builds tend to be pretty stable, but there are occasional bugs that can cause problems. Generally, you'll be good using any recent build, where the meaning of "recent" varies with your willingness to download new builds.

The numbers after the dash are the date the build was created - in this case, the 15th of July 2008. If you're not experiencing any issues with it, then keep on using it until such time as you feel like downloading a new version.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: GodEater on July 17, 2008, 09:40:20 AM
Yes, but when there *is* a release 3.0, then it will be "the latest stable release".

I think you missed the point of his question.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: TAC109 on July 17, 2008, 10:16:47 PM
.... My guess is that part of the problem might have to do with my enormous MUSIC folder on the internal memory: the MUSIC folder has no subdirectories, just 500+ files (I looked at the list limits, just to be sure).

The FAT32 file system that Rockbox uses gets very inefficient with large numbers of files in directories. You would be best to organise your music into a directory structure with no more than 100 files per subdirectory.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: soap on July 17, 2008, 10:27:59 PM
.... My guess is that part of the problem might have to do with my enormous MUSIC folder on the internal memory: the MUSIC folder has no subdirectories, just 500+ files (I looked at the list limits, just to be sure).

The FAT32 file system that Rockbox uses gets very inefficient with large numbers of files in directories. You would be best to organise your music into a directory structure with no more than 100 files per subdirectory.
???
I have 482 folders in my ##Music directory and have never experienced an issue.  I have had more in the past.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: bluebrother on July 18, 2008, 01:24:44 AM
The FAT32 file system that Rockbox uses gets very inefficient with large numbers of files in directories.
If you know how FAT works you know that this is simply not true. FAT works as simply linked list, and this doesn't make having lots of entries unefficient, especially not lots of entries in a single folder.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: TAC109 on July 18, 2008, 08:24:01 PM
The FAT32 file system that Rockbox uses gets very inefficient with large numbers of files in directories.
If you know how FAT works you know that this is simply not true. FAT works as simply linked list, and this doesn't make having lots of entries unefficient, especially not lots of entries in a single folder.

I'm sorry, I have to disagree with you. "Simple linked lists" are not efficient with "enormous folders". To find a file, on average half the list has to be searched serially. If the directory is fragmented this will require multiple random disk accesses. It is simply not efficient.

soap: The poster I was replying to has all his files in an "enormous folder", rather than subfolders in a folder.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: saanaito on July 19, 2008, 12:25:15 PM
If the directory is fragmented this will require multiple random disk accesses. It is simply not efficient.

That reminds me of something I've been pondering. Short of transferring the files one by one, is it possible to force any OS (Windows or Linux) to copy files to their destination in alphabetical order, rather than in the order stored on the source disk?

The poster I was replying to has all his files in an "enormous folder", rather than subfolders in a folder.

While I have intentions of changing that, it's going to be a ridiculous task to create the folders, unless I can find a tool to help me. ALL of my .MP3 files are named "<artist name> - <song title>". My intentions are to create folders called <artist name>.

If I beat someone to finding such a tool ;) , I'll put it on the UsefulTools Wiki page (and drop a note here).
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: obo on July 19, 2008, 12:42:25 PM
While I have intentions of changing that, it's going to be a ridiculous task to create the folders, unless I can find a tool to help me. ALL of my .MP3 files are named "<artist name> - <song title>". My intentions are to create folders called <artist name>.

If I beat someone to finding such a tool ;) , I'll put it on the UsefulTools Wiki page (and drop a note here).

There are already a few programs to do that on the UsefulTools page (under MP3 Tagging & Organization) - EasyTag and Musicbrainz spring to mind.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: soap on July 19, 2008, 01:14:03 PM
I'm sorry, I have to disagree with you. "Simple linked lists" are not efficient with "enormous folders". To find a file, on average half the list has to be searched serially. If the directory is fragmented this will require multiple random disk accesses. It is simply not efficient.
And Rockbox can cache the directory listings/content.  This is not the problem the complainer appears to be having.
Quote
soap: The poster I was replying to has all his files in an "enormous folder", rather than subfolders in a folder.
I believe Items = Items unless you care to explain otherwise.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: Febs on July 20, 2008, 07:16:02 AM
If I beat someone to finding such a tool ;) , I'll put it on the UsefulTools Wiki page (and drop a note here).

There are already a few programs to do that on the UsefulTools page (under MP3 Tagging & Organization) - EasyTag and Musicbrainz spring to mind.

mp3tag, Tag and Rename, Foobar 2000, Media Monkey , etc.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: saanaito on July 20, 2008, 01:33:20 PM
Thanks guys, I'll look at them. I thought that they were strictly tagging programs, so I never bothered with 'em (I already have a great tagger on my Linux machine in my opinion - Ex Falso).

[SIDE NOTE] Would it be a good idea to put "feature" columns on the UsefulTools page? This would further help people with finding exactly what they want. [/SIDE NOTE]
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: Yotto on July 20, 2008, 03:57:55 PM
That reminds me of something I've been pondering. Short of transferring the files one by one, is it possible to force any OS (Windows or Linux) to copy files to their destination in alphabetical order, rather than in the order stored on the source disk?

I've never paid attention. I thought both did copy in alphabetical order.  But, to force it in Linux I suppose you could do:
Code: [Select]
for i in `ls`; do cp $i DESTINATION; done;
This will only do one directory. I suppose you could do something with 'find' instead of 'ls'. Note the quotes in the above command are backticks (the ~ key without shift).

In dos, which I can't test right now as I have no windows machines handy, you could probably do:
Code: [Select]
for %i in (*) do copy %i DESTINATION
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: GodEater on July 22, 2008, 02:34:51 AM
Thanks guys, I'll look at them. I thought that they were strictly tagging programs, so I never bothered with 'em (I already have a great tagger on my Linux machine in my opinion - Ex Falso).

If you're using Ex Falso already, why not use that to do the renaming? It supports doing it too.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: saanaito on July 22, 2008, 07:39:23 AM
If you're using Ex Falso already, why not use that to do the renaming? It supports doing it too.

I want to make a bunch of folders; I've already used it to rename a bunch of files. ;)
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: GodEater on July 22, 2008, 09:19:30 AM
It does that too  :-\
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: saanaito on July 22, 2008, 09:48:47 AM
Oh, it does? But..... how? I don't see any means for that anywhere......
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: shoe on July 22, 2008, 12:34:04 PM
I haven't used this particular program, but often programs that allow you to rename files can create folders by specifying the path in the file name.  For example, renaming to:
<artist>/<album>/<track number> - <track name>
would produce a folder for the artist and inside a folder for each album, and inside that the tracks in order.  Hope that's helpful.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: soap on July 22, 2008, 05:11:15 PM
If you're using Ex Falso already, why not use that to do the renaming? It supports doing it too.

I want to make a bunch of folders; I've already used it to rename a bunch of files. ;)
I have yet to use a tagger which won't make both.  Tag & Rename I know will.  This is a question for your tagger of choice's support forums, not Rockbox's.
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: Zardoz on July 22, 2008, 09:15:39 PM
Is there a 'roadmap' or an estimated timeframe (or a deadline or cut-off point) for release 3.0?
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: JdGordon on July 22, 2008, 10:17:00 PM
its looking like late august at the moment, and both show stoppers are fixed so there is no reason for it to not happen
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: ThaCrip on July 24, 2008, 11:49:12 PM
Sansa C200 should not be released until The OF is not needed for things like charging and transfering files.

This was discussed on IRC and most people seemed to think it wasn't a big deal, since using the OF for file transfer works smoothly enough on the Sansas.  Though I think there was some thought that automatic rebooting back into the OF should be fixed if at all possible.

yeah i agree, it would be nice to have all the charging/file transfers in the Rockbox firmware itself but since it probably aint going to happen anytime soon i can easily live with it since it's generally not a problem like you where saying that 'most people' where saying since using original firmware for that is pretty easy and not troublesome.

but what i was curious on... is there any estimates as to when we could expect the v3.0 release? (i know people dont like giving estimates but even a estimate within a half year (i.e. first half of next year) would be fine by me ;) )

p.s. a before Christmas of 2008 release of v3.0 would be nice though ;)

p.s.s. i recently got back from a trip out of state i took and took my Sansa e250 with me and used it for hours on the way down and it's been pretty stable (the build i was using was r18030) so as far as i can tell Rockbox is quite stable for general use through the 'database' menu's etc... i was using only .OGG files. (more specifically 45kbps avg bit rate ones)
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: JdGordon on July 24, 2008, 11:52:23 PM
but what i was curious on... is there any estimates as to when we could expect the v3.0 release? (i know people dont like giving estimates but even a estimate within a half year (i.e. first half of next year) would be fine by me ;) )

p.s. a before Christmas of 2008 release of v3.0 would be nice though ;)

usually i'm very polite.. but for crying ouot loud.. did you not bother to read the thread before replying? heck you only had to read the previous 2 messages....
Title: Re: My opinions on release 3.0
Post by: ThaCrip on July 24, 2008, 11:57:34 PM
but what i was curious on... is there any estimates as to when we could expect the v3.0 release? (i know people dont like giving estimates but even a estimate within a half year (i.e. first half of next year) would be fine by me ;) )

p.s. a before Christmas of 2008 release of v3.0 would be nice though ;)

usually i'm very polite.. but for crying ouot loud.. did you not bother to read the thread before replying? heck you only had to read the previous 2 messages....

sorry, i just noticed the 'late august' above ;) ... i was reading the first page a little bit and just replied... sorry for not reading through it all but i was in the process of doing that.